I can lead Labor to victory: Gillard

Outgoing Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd in Brisbane on Friday: “I want to finish the job the Australian people elected me to do when I was elected by them to become prime minister.” Photo: Matt Roberts

Gemma Daley, Ben Woodhead and Matthew Cranston

The battle for the leadership is “not an episode of Celebrity Big Brother,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in Adelaide on Friday morning.
Photo: Morne de Klerk

Finance Minister Pennny Wong says the Labor government works more smoothly since Julia Gillard assumed the leadership.
Photo: Andrew Meares

“I’m indicating today I will support Julia Gillard,” Climate and Indsutry Minister Greg Combet said on Friday.
Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

“Kevin Rudd has been working to bring on a leadership challenge, sabotaging the government behind the scenes for some months,” Treasurer Wayne Swan told ABC Radio on Friday.
Photo: Andrew Meares

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey came to the defence of the former Prime Minister on Seven Network on Friday, saying the attacks on Mr Rudd had been “vicious and malevolent”.
Photo: Jim Rice

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon told Sky News on Friday morning that Mr Rudd was willing to call a referendum on a takeover of public hospitals in 2010 even though he knew it would be defeated.
Photo: Angela Wylie

““Kevin Rudd is the person who has been talking down the prime minister in a deeply personal way,” Early Childhood Minister Kate Ellis told ABC television on Friday.
Photo: David Mariuz

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called on her caucus colleagues to give her their support, saying she is confident she can lead Labor to victory at the next election, while questioning whether her opponent can be trusted.

“Australia can have trust in me that I am the person who gets things done,” Ms Gillard told a press conference in Melbourne on Friday afternoon.

Stressing that she had the character, temperament and discipline needed to lead the nation, Ms Gillard highlighted climate, education, health and telecommunications as policies she had delivered.

“I am asking my caucus colleagues for their support on Monday so we can spend 2012 delivering further much-needed reforms for our nation,” she said, adding that she’d been reassured she had strong backing.

“I’m someone with plenty of courage; I’m someone with plenty of discipline; I’m someone who gets up every day and does it all again, no matter how hard the going is – that is who I am.

“I, as Prime Minister, can lead Labor to a victory at that election.”

Outgoing foreign minister Kevin Rudd on Friday confirmed he would challenge Ms Gillard for the leadership in Monday’s ballot at 10am, saying Labor was “heading for the rocks” at the next election and he was keen to finish the job he had been elected to do.

He also signalled he would take a different tack on climate change, saying he would review the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) six months after it started on July 1.

Labor didn’t need the Greens to tell it how to protect the environment, he said, and he would seek the “earliest possible transition” to a floating carbon price.

Responding to Mr Rudd’s comments on the CPRS, Ms Gillard said she had shown the dedication and determination to put a price on carbon.

“I am the person who gets things done,” she said numerous times. “On carbon pricing, who can put their hand up and say they got it done? I can.

“That remained to be done because under Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership, in a different parliament, when he had majority government, a leader of the opposition who agreed with him on carbon pricing – even in those circumstances he wasn’t able to get a carbon price through.”

But Mr Rudd said Ms Gillard, who ousted him as leader in 2010, had lost the trust of the Australian electorate and he was the one to beat Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

“If we’re honest to ourselves, all indications are that we’re heading for the rocks at the next election,” he said at a press conference in Brisbane at 2.40pm AEDT.

“I believe that to do the best for Australia and Labor things have to change. It’s no secret that our government has a lot to do to win the trust of the Australia people.

“I want to finish the job the Australian people elected me to do when I was elected by them to become prime minister.”

He matched Ms Gillard’s promise to go to the back bench if he lost the ballot and said he would not challenge her a second time.

Mr Rudd pointed again to his record managing the economy during the global financial crisis as well as investments in education and child care and the creation of the renewable energy target to show achievements during his time as prime minister.

“This is a good record of achievement,” Mr Rudd said, again highlighting small business, families and manufacturing again as areas of focus. “With the right Labor team we can meet the challenges of another global crisis and see off the threat of an Abbott government.

“At the end of the day it’s all about jobs – creating jobs, not exporting jobs.”

He called for a “truly secret” ballot and repeated his challenge to Ms Gillard to guarantee sitting members their preselection was safe regardless of who they supported in the leadership battle.

Mr Rudd attacked Mr Abbott’s stands on climate change, women and the national broadband network, saying he was mired in the past.

“Mr Abbott is not the answer, Australia can do better than Mr Abbott,” Mr Rudd said. “Beating Mr Abbott is vital and beating Mr Abbott is achievable. He is entirely beatable.

“This is the single most negative force in Australian politics that we have seen,” Mr Rudd said of Mr Abbott. “The importance therefore of beating him is paramount.”

Mr Rudd also said more needed to be done to strengthen Labor party reform, saying he would return the power to elect the ministry to the party.

“What we want is the power of the factions to be transferred to its rightful position, to each and every member of the parliamentary party,” Mr Rudd said.

“Australians are sick and tired of outside forces calling the shots. Members of our parliamentary party should have the freedom to vote as they choose.”

His declaration came after Penny Wong and Greg Combet became the latest senior ministers to back Ms Gillard, amid further attacks on Mr Rudd’s government from Treasurer Wayne Swan, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon and Environment Minister Tony Burke on Friday.

“The process is much better now under Prime Minister Gillard than what we previously saw,” Senator Wong told Sky News. Rudd Brisbane presser

Climate and Industry Minister Greg Combet also threw his support behind the PM. “I’m indicating today I will support Julia Gillard,” he said.

Ms Gillard, meanwhile, reiterated her statements that the choice of who should lead the Labor Party should come down who displays the “strength, character and courage” to lead the nation.

“The choice that my colleagues will make on Monday is about who should be Prime Minister of this nation. It is a choice about who’s got the strength, the temperament, the character, the courage to lead this nation. Who’s got the ability to get things done even in the face of adversity,” she said.

“What Kevin obviously struggled to do when times were a little bit politically tough, particularly in 2010, was run a government with any sort of method, or purpose, or discipline.

“This is not an episode of Celebrity Big Brother, this is about who should be Prime Minister.”

Following his return to Australia from Washington on Friday morning, Mr Rudd urged Australians to make their voices heard on the leadership issue through their local member.

While he repeatedly referred to “shock and awe” tactics being used against him, Mr Rudd signalled a willingness to move beyond the vitriol of the leadership campaign and work with ministers who have led the attack against his actions over recent days.

“I think it’s important to look at a person’s behaviour over time and how I’ve dealt with some of these challenges,” he said.

“My position with Mr Swan ... is that I think it’s important to have a government of all the talents and I think that’s the right and responsible action ... I am, however, pretty disappointed with the level of intense negativity.”

Mr Swan on Friday again attacked Mr Rudd for trying to sabotage the government for months and for not pledging to go the back bench if he lost Monday’s ballot.

“What they have been doing behind the scenes has been un-Australian,” Mr Swan told ABC Radio on Friday. “Kevin Rudd has been working to bring on a leadership challenge, sabotaging the government behind the scenes for some months.”

The bitter feud between the two sides has split cabinet and damaged the party, with Rudd backer Resource Minister Martin Ferguson saying Labor was writing the coalition’s advertising slogans for the next election.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said the attacks on Mr Rudd had been “vicious and malevolent”.

Ms Roxon weighed into the debate again, saying she would not be part of a Rudd front bench and revealing that he was willing to call a referendum on a takeover of public hospitals in 2010 even though he knew it would be defeated.

Ms Roxon, who was health minister in the Rudd government, said in an interview on Sky News on Friday morning that the former prime minister thought a referendum would help Labor win a 2010 election.

Independent MP Tony Windsor on Friday said Mr Rudd had rung him on Wednesday night but he cut the conversation short because “I didn’t want to get into what I thought he wanted to talk about”.